This week’s episode started with a video package highlighting all the drama that is the Maryse love square. The monkeys in the truck are well-known for their ability to knock out a top class video package but even they can’t polish this turd. To be fair, they weren’t given much to work with. Lucky Cannon, Yoshi Tatsu and Ted DiBiase Jr make Vin Diesel look like Mads Mikkelsen.

The big question is whether Maryse has chosen Ted or NXT. Surprisingly they get this out of the way immediately. Matt Striker asked for her decision, to which she said “look at me”. In an absolutely vintage Striker moment, he took this literally and proceeded to check her out. What she meant was look at me, I can get any man I want, see ya never Ted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a relationship in WWE end with such little fanfare, Ted doesn’t even show up to dispute her answer.

Besides, why have one charisma vacuum when you can have six?

The rookies assembled for this week’s challenge, The Power of the Punch. Sadly, it wasn’t Regal putting his brass knuckles on and decking everyone. Simply put, it was one of those test your strength punchbags from a funfair. Each rookie got one punch, rookie with the highest score won. Byron Saxton got us underway and set the tone with a score of 649. The crowd booed. Jacob Novak went next and absolutely whiffed it, scoring just 456. This was Maryse’s reaction:

“Couldn’t break the skin of a rice pudding, that lad,” said William Regal, barely containing his disgust. The booing intensified. Up next was Darren Young, who barely beat Jacob with 469. Maryse insisted she could do better. Conor O’Brian took the lead with 770 but was immediately trumped by Titus O’Neil who smashed it with 801. It was down to Lucky Cannon but instead of taking a swing, he insisted he was above it. He’s here to win championships, which is fair enough in my opinion. However, they don’t take kindly to that sort of talk on this embarrassing talent show that no one is watching and Lucky got a DQ.

That meant Titus won! He took the four redemption points. I think you get two magic beans to the redemption point.

Lucky took out his frustration at being forced to partake in this wheelie bin fire of a show on Maryse, but Yoshi came out to defend her honour or something. Lucky laid out the challenge to his love rival and Yoshi accepted. An epic main event awaited.

I Am What I Am

WWE love to flog their films on NXT Redemption and this week’s shill slot was given to That’s What I Am, which I’ve never heard of but am now fascinated by after seeing this trailer. It’s set in the 60s and follows this geek at school as he falls for a girl, but he then has to work with an even bigger geek for a project and you can tell he’s a bigger geek because he’s ginger and wearing big fake ears and Ed Harris is a teacher but he might be a paedo and Randy Orton is threatening to go to the papers. It’s like four films in one and none of them sound any good. Incredibly, it has a rating of 7.1 on IMDb.

Titus O’Neil v. Darren Young

It’s interesting to see the humble beginnings of Titus and Darren before their legendary battles in 2016. I still get chills when I think of this seminal promo from Titus, it’s the Cane Dewey of this generation.

Back to reality and Darren cut a promo on his way to the ring about how Hornswoggle is a “pint-sized joke”. In a fantastic bit of Randy Orton-esque over-explaining, Darren then pointed at Hornswoggle and said “you’re a joke.” Glad he cleared that up, I suppose he could have been talking about the 6’6 Titus. Todd Grisham pointed out this is height discrimination and he won’t stand for it. He didn’t even crack up as he said it, fair play.

It’s only the sixth episode but it’s already the third time Titus and Darren have been in the ring together. It’s probably because they’re the best the show has to offer in-ring wise, but that says a lot about the quality of the show. The match was par for the course, just a few minutes long and ended when Darren was distracted by Hornswoggle, allowing Titus to roll him up. Strong as an ox 6’6 guy wins with a distraction roll-up.

After the match, Darren attacked Titus and grabbed Hornswoggle, but was talked out of beating him down by his pro, Chavo Guerrero. Like I could believe that, if anyone on this show is going to beat up a dwarf, it’s Chavo Guerrero.

Pretty Fly For A White Guy

Last week, JTG wagered with Vladimir Kozlov that he could make Jacob cool. So, this week JTG introduced Headcrack Novak and well, the result is above. Look at the sheer boredom on the faces of those kids. This is what William Regal made of it all:

“I feel so sorry for this show.”

Headcrack heard all of Regal’s comments about him being a terrible excuse of a pro wrestler and he wouldn’t stand for it any longer. Regal sat in silence the entire time, watching Novak, infuriating him further until he appeared to challenge Regal. Only then, did Regal speak: “the last thing that lad wants is me turning him into a bloody vegetable.” It’s certainly not the last thing I want.

Jacob Novak v. Byron Saxton

The match was nothing, but Regal cut a brilliant promo on commentary about being an old pro. The sort you’ll be familiar with is you seen his spell as final boss on NXT. He goes into detail about what the ring means to him, why he wipes his feet before a match and his struggle to put his past behind him and reinvent himself in a new role.

Jacob bounced Byron off the top rope, followed up with two kicks and finished Byron with the softest big boot ever. It was similar to how you’d push open a door when your hands are full. The crowd couldn’t even be arsed to boo anymore.

Rated-R Feels

This show wasn’t even the worst thing to happen to wrestling that week. It took place a few days after Edge retired. His retirement speech is replayed in full and it’s a strange thing to watch. It’s so sudden that no one, Edge included, seems to know how to react. There’s total disbelief on the faces of some fans. There’s some nice nods to those with the benefit of flash photography, The Brood and even the live sex celebration. Edge was one of my favourites as a kid and I still remember reading his blogs on wwe.com when he was recovering from a broken neck. It’s good to see he’s settled into a life outside WWE now, having children and giving them mad celebrity names like Lyric.

Lucky Cannon v. Yoshi Tatsu

Here we are then, the battle for Maryse even though she doesn’t want either of them. She sat in on commentary and buried both of them, twice comparing Yoshi to a five-year-old before going on a remarkable tangent about how Lucky’s “Da Lish” nickname reminds her of a French dish of fried potatoes, gravy and cheese. I googled this and it turns out she was talking about Poutine. I am pretty confident Maryse has never eaten Poutine in her life. Not that I will either. Why ruin some chips and gravy with cheese? What is wrong with Quebecers?

This battle for the ages went a whole four minutes before Yoshi won with a diving spinning heel kick that almost made contact. The King of Kings was victorious and even got a kiss from Maryse for his trouble.

It’s pretty obvious she did it just to spite Lucky but who’s got the heart to tell him? He was made up, bless him.

Straight from the depths of hell, NXT Redemption classic reviews have been revived. Essentially, it’s a lot more fun to write about terrible wrestling. Terrible wrestling is timeless, it’s why Botchamania is so popular.

Previous episodes were hindered by the upcoming Wrestlemania 27, not that the show needs help hindering itself. Episode 4 was largely a 30 minute plug for Mania with a six-man tag slapped on the end. But now, with Mania out of the way, you’d think it’s time to focus on NXT. Well, you’d be wrong! Todd Grisham opens the show by saying it’s been two days since one of the greatest Wrestlemanias ever. Now thankfully I’ve never seen WM27, it happened exactly a year before I started watching wrestling again, but I do know that it was generally regarded as a stinker with one of the worst main events to ever take place at Mania. Basically, your opinion is invalid in the eyes of WWE.

That’s not it with regards to the showcase of the immortals, as the show starts with a Wrestlemania trivia challenge. The rookies simply have to take it in turns to name a winner from Wrestlemania 27, the show that took place two days ago. Piece of piss, right? Well, Darren Young goes first and says Bret Hart. It’s a wrong answer. ANYONE, Darren. You could have said any one of the winners from the show that was happening 48 hours ago. Byron Saxton & Jacob Novak get us on track with The Undertaker & Randy Orton, before Conor O’Brian goes with Snooki. Showcase of the immortals. Now, Lucky Cannon had been surprisingly decent in the last two shows. It was bog-standard stuff like local sports team heat but at least he was acting like something resembling a professional wrestler. But this week it’s a swing and a miss. Instead of answering he asks Matt Striker if he knows where his girlfriend was last night because he does. It’s like he had prepared the line and was going to say it no matter what. William Regal points out the other flaw with Lucky’s statement, Matt Striker doesn’t have a girlfriend. Lucky should know Striker is more of a Craigslist kind of guy anyway.

Titus O’Neil, Byron & Jacob all answer correctly but Conor comes up blank and gets eliminated. The topic switches to Hall of Fame 2011 inductees. We get through five answers until Jacob fails to come up with anything. Byron & Titus are the final two and have to name NXT rookies. They both open with themselves and after going back and forth for a bit, Titus says Byron. It’s an invalid answer so Byron takes the victory and the four crucial Redemption points, whatever they do.

Conor O’Brian v. Jacob Novak

It’s revealed on commentary that Jacob has switched from white trunks to gold because he actually took Byron’s diapers comment to heart. I was right! I was just joking and thought I was over-analysing a six-year-old bad wrestling show. What other subtleties have I been missing?

The main take away from these old shows is how good William Regal was on commentary. There’s about ten things from this episode alone I could quote. It’s more entertaining than what’s going on in the ring, that’s for sure. Todd tells us Conor has two dogs called Princess & Diva and asks Bill what this tells us about Conor. Regal’s response is: “Not a lot. I don’t like dogs.” He then switches flawlessly to analysing a wristlock. This show really isn’t worthy of his aloof charm.

Conor gets the win by ducking Jacob’s attempted Helluva Kick and rolling him up for the three. Hang on, I think we need to take a moment to absorb the news that Konnor from The Ascension called his dogs Princess & Diva. I wouldn’t have thought the wasteland was a good place to raise dogs.

The Original (Sh)It Couple

In the latest chapter in Yoshi Tatsu’s quest to win Maryse’s affection, he is duped by the dastardly Lucky Cannon. Lucky apologises to Yoshi for interfering with his attempts and lies that he heard Maryse likes him too. Poor Yoshi takes the bait and goes to ask Maryse out. Now before The Miz, came Ted DiBiase Jr. Ted denies Yoshi on her behalf and beats him up for good measure. Yoshi’s misery is compounded when Maryse steps over him like he’s a puddle.

At this stage, Maryse is still a bit ropey but there’s moments where you see 2017 Maryse trying to burst out. Returning as Miz’s overly protective wife has been the making of her, Miz too. Those hilarious Total Bellas spoofs cemented them as one of WWE’s top acts.

You know whaaaaaaaaat? Perfect.

Titus O’Neil & Hornswoggle v. Darren Young & Chavo Guerrero

Titus is wearing an Omega logo on his gear. It made me realise what this show needs is for Kenny Omega to fully embrace his Terminator theme from Wrestle Kingdom and time travel back to 2011 and V-Trigger everyone in sight. Anything that means I don’t have to watch a Hornswoggle match would suffice.

The referees seem to take a very lax view of the rules during tag matches on this show. This week takes that to the next level when Mike Chioda allows a blatant Hornswoggle low-blow. Darren gets on his knees for a test of strength with Horny and midget jokes ensue. In response, Hornswoggle boots Darren in the balls in full sight of the ref. Straight-up kicks him the daddybags. Chioda gestures that it’s a gut kick even though Darren is selling a kick in the swingers. I don’t think anyone cares at this point.

It doesn’t get any better as Chavo goes to the top rope but gets hampered by Swoggle biting his ankle. Chavo sells the bite despite the fact he’s wearing wrestling boots and wouldn’t feel a thing. The match ends with a member of the Guerrero family chasing a dwarf under the ring as Titus gives his future tag partner a Clash of the Titus for a merciful end.

Ted DiBiase Jr. v. Yoshi Tatsu

It’s obvious that nothing matters on this show but this match was preceded by a Raw recap that showed a John Cena/Rock promo in full. Wrestlemania 27 might be over but we need to start that build for 28, it’s only 51-and-a-half weeks away.

The main event of a show designed to find the next breakout star in WWE features one of the pros and a guy who isn’t even meant to be on the show fighting for the host’s love. The Game Yoshi Tatsu heads to the ring full of purpose but gets boringly stomped on for a couple of minutes before Ted gets disqualified for winning too well or some shit. All I can say is woof, Ted DiBiase Jr. It’s like they took one of the failed Randy Orton clones from the lab and thought sod it, he’ll do.

Maryse gets a pang of guilt and orders Ted to stop beating down Yoshi. Ted hilariously seems to think NXT is leading Maryse astray and sets her an ultimatum, somehow doing so with even less charasma than John Johnson. It’s either Ted or NXT. Maryse has one week to decide.

For some reason, I’ve decided to watch NXT Redemption and record the details of my ordeal here. Gameshow NXT thankfully happened before I made my surprise return to wrestling in 2012, so I guess this will provide me with a shock of gratitude anytime a new, sparkly episode of NXT happens to be a bit average.

My knowledge of gameshow NXT stems purely from when With Spandex used to do the vintage best and worsts. From my understanding, it was a load of obstacle courses and talk-the-talk challenges while NXT Redemption went on-and-on until it eventually turned into a weird sitcom as the powers that be seemingly forgot about it. So here we go, let’s start with episode 1 which aired on March 8, 2011. Feel free to watch along with me, as WWE have uploaded all the episodes to Youtube.